Richest GDP Countries 2006

Nations with World’s Wealthiest & Fastest-Growing GDPs

Jul 3, 2007 Daniel Workman

America's economy is still tops in terms of GDP & GDP per capita, but other countries including China, India & Russia continue to show strong gains.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) refers to the total value or wealth of final goods and services that a nation produces in a specified year.

Both total GDP and per capita statistics below are based on global purchasing power parity (PPP). The figures shown represent numbers converted to international dollars using PPP rates. One international dollar has the same purchasing power in a given country as the U.S. dollar has in the United States.

Richest GDP Countries 2006: Amounts Per Country

1. United States … $13 trillion in international$ (up 3.3% from 2005)
2. China … $10 trillion (up 10.7%)
3. Japan … $4.17 trillion (up 2.2%)
4. India … $4.16 trillion (up 9.2%)
5. Germany … $2.6 trillion (up 2.7%)
6. United Kingdom … $2.1 trillion (up 2.7%)
7. France … $1.9 trillion (up 2%)
8. Italy … $1.8 trillion (up 1.9%)
9. Russia … $1.72 trillion (up 6.7%)
10. Brazil … $1.70 trillion (up 3.7%)
11. Mexico … $1.17 trillion (up 4.8%)
12. Canada … $1.16 trillion (up 2.7%)

While the U.S. is tops in GDP, America also ran trade deficits with each of the other countries listed above. This makes a strong case for the fact that the U.S. consumes much more than it produces, at least in terms of trade with these major partners.

Richest GDP Countries 2006: Fastest Growing

Overall, the world economy’s GDP grew by 5.1% in 2006 – a higher rate than 7 of the richest GDP countries listed above.

China, India and Russia show the highest annual GDP increases among the above countries. This is a trend that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects to continue for at least 2 more years.

Other countries with significant GDP growth in 2006 were Latvia (up 11% from 2005), Estonia (up 10.9%), Argentina (up 8.5%), Slovakia (up 8.3%), Lithuania (up 7.8%) and Romania (up 7.2%).

While the above statistics present GDP by country, the following list takes into consideration each country’s population. These numbers are known as GDP per capita.

Richest GDP Countries 2006: Per Capita

1. United States … $43,444 in international$ (up 5.5% from 2005)
2. Canada … $35,494 (up 5.1%)
3. United Kingdom … $35,051 (up 5.2%)
4. Japan … $32,647 (up 5.7%)
5. Germany … $31,095 (up 5.2%)
6. Italy … $30,732 (up 4.2%)
7. France … $30,693 (up 4.8%)
8. Russia … $12,096 (up 10.1%)
9. Mexico … $11,249 (up 6%)
10. Brazil … $9,108 (up 5.2%)
11. China … $7,598 (up 12.7%)
12. India … $3,737 (up 9.8%)

China, Russia and India had the fastest GDP growth per capita in 2006 from the prior year.

Another way of looking at these statistics in conjunction with the U.S. trade deficit is that American consumers are driving GDP gains not only at home but also in foreign countries via international trade.

Sources

This analysis is based on latest statistics from the US Census Bureau - Foreign Trade Statistics and CIA World Factbook as of the date of article publication.

The copyright of the article Richest GDP Countries 2006 in International Trade is owned by Daniel Workman. Permission to republish Richest GDP Countries 2006 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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